QR Code

What are QR Codes

QR Codes are two dimensional bar codes, created by Denso-Wave in 1994 (thank you Wikipedia). These codes can contain a large variety of data: URLs, vCards, geographical data, etc, and have been picked up by google for Android based devices. As an example, you can see on http://code.google.com/ that any downloadable file has a QR code image. It can be scanned using a hand held device, which will then propose an action based on the decrypted data: open an URL, install an app, etc.

This extension

Google chart API

The current implementation only uses the google chart API. This very simple API allows you to provide an URL with a few fields regarding the desired chart, and get an image in return. While this is far from perfect when it comes to data privacy, it does the job.

Implementation

ezqrcode is very simple at the moment. It has a base class, eZQRCode, that can be used to set all the available parameters: size, error correction, data, etc. Based on this, the class will return the URL for the image on chart.apis.google.com.
This class is currently only implemented in a template operator named qrcode. This operator accepts the image size as a parameter:

{"http://share.ez.no"|qrcode( '200x200' )}

In the latest SVN revision, the extension has native support for email and url datatypes. Just pass the datatype directly to the operator:

{$node.data_map.url|qrcode( '200x200' )}
{$node.data_map.email|qrcode( '200x200' )}

What's next

An operator only based approach is of course a bit rude. But I have a few plans.

Then it would probably be a good idea to create a qrcode datatype, but this datatype wouldn't contain data on its own besides configuration (size, error correction level, etc), but would link to other attributes from the same object.

Suggestions and feedback are of course more than welcome.